Category: Civil aircraft
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Piper J3 – Part Two – Inky, Winky, and Dinky

I don’t think I would be able to build things in smaller scale than 1:72 unless they were of very big prototypes – the parts would be too small. As it is I curse the nonsense of PE and resin details. The heading image shows a pretty good result for the interior of the J3…
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Piper J3 – Part One -The Household Word

Hoover. Not Herbert, you herbert. Hoover like in vacuum cleaner. The brand name. Except, in England it isn’t a brand name – it’s the name of a class of product – the vacuum cleaner. People don’t vacuum the house, they hoover it. Losing that capital letter was the greatest piece of industrial and advertising good…
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Junkers Ju52 – Part Four – Czech Junk

Old Czech junk. Actually old French junk that was foisted on the Czechs. And happy they were to get it, too. The scheme of the Junkers 52 that you see in the finished product is listed as being in service with the Police Air Service in 1950. A bit of googling shows that the Police…
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Junkers Ju52 – Part Two – The Four-part Fuselage

The Potez bomber that Mister Craft boxed up from a Heller mould had a distinctive four-sided fuselage that lent itself to IKEA construction. So does the Junkers 52 – as long as you get the elements in registration it all goes very well. But that doesn’t mean that you can wipe round the edges, clap…
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The Commemorative Scheme

We’ve all seen one that we liked – and ten that made us wince. I mean the commemorative scheme applied to a current airplane in someone’s roster. It may be a warplane, a civil airliner, or a private plane. It might be an R/C model or a static one. But as soon as you see…
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Junkers F.13 -Part One – Corrugated Iron

Corrugated aluminium, actually. Hugo Junkers’ favourite material. He built a lot of things out of it – I suspect that it featured in water heaters, aircraft, and possibly underwear. The twenties roared in Dessau… This example of a Junkers all-metal airliner caught my eye on the Revell shelf. Then research showed it to be a…
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Wenn Ist Genug?

A question for all of us – but in this case for the model builder who is puttying up their kit. When do you stop? a. When all the seam lines are full. b. When you run out of putty. c. When you have lost the will to live. If ( b. ) or (…
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I Remember Air Travel…

And that lovely crispy bacon you got before the war… The local airlines used to get a yearly contribution from me to visit Sydney or Melbourne. Not last year, and not this one, and maybe not next year, either…but hopefully some year after that. I hope the Sandowne Park model expo is still going then.…
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Morane Saulnier MS 230 – Part Four – The First Of The Few

The Morane Saulnier MS 230 trainer is ready to fly. The cadets of the RRAAF will finally have their own aircraft. It has been especially blessed by the Bishop of Strelsau – a comfort to the cadets. This was not possible at Hentzau Field, of course, but His Reverence blessed the individual parts as they…

